A turn-based game is one in which two or more players alternate being the active player to change the state of the shared game. The active player has the right to make changes to the current state of the game based on the predetermined rules of the game while the one or more non-active players must remain passive until the active player has finished. The players take turn being the active player. For the purpose of this invention the method of selecting the active player on any given turn does not matter, but is predetermined before the start of the game. This patent does not cover real-time games in which two or more players are simultaneously active and may concurrently manipulate the state of the shared game.
In order to keep a turn-based game progressing forward in a manner that is fair to all the players, a time keeping system is used to make sure that the active player uses only a predetermined amount of time to change the current state of the game. For example in the game of Chess a pair of clocks is used to keep the amount of time that each player has used. If a player uses more than the allotted time the predetermine rules decide the consequence for the active player. For example in Chess it is common for the active player to lose the game if the active player uses more than the allotted time. In other games the player may lose only the turn and not the game.
Before the game begins the time keeping system is configured with the amount of time allotted for the players. The specification of the allotted time is refereed to as a time control. Time controls are typically specified in terms of how much time the player may use per turn or how much total time the player may use for all turns of the game. For the purpose of this invention the details of the time control specification is not relevant. A fast game is one where the time control is fast enough to allow the game to be finished in a few hours. An example of a fast game is when the players must make each move within one minute or make all moves within two hours. A slow game is one where the time control is slow enough that the game will take days, months or even years to finish. An example of a slow game is when the players must make each move within two days or make all moves within one year.
Current time keeping systems for turn-based games do not allow the ability for players to engage in a fast time control game over an extended period of time. For example two Chess players may want to play with a time control of one minute per move, but may not have the time to complete the game in one sitting and would prefer to play the game over a period of many days or months. Current time keeping systems do not allow this since the time must always be deducted from the game clock of one player or the other.
The obvious solution of pausing the game by stopping the game clock of the active player so that time is not deducted from it does not work because it allows the active player to continue thinking about the current game state without losing any time. This would be unfair to the other players.
The following documents relating to this invention were considered:                Time keeping systems in games        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-keeping_systems_in_games        Time control        http://en.wikipedia.org/wikaime_control        Correspondence chess        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correspondence chess        Digital Chess Clock        U.S. Pat. No. 4,884,255; Nov. 28, 1989; Robert J. Fischer        Chess Clock U.S. Pat. No. 4,472,067; Sep. 18, 1984; Donald M. Richardson        